Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Winter quarter started Monday and, so far, I've made a new friend who has studied Japanese and is a really cool girl, I don't feel overwhelmed by the school-workload (yet), and I feel a little better about trying to participate in my classes. The only thing that isn't so great is that I'm back to getting very little sleep because I have to study when Devi's asleep (and she doesn't go to bed until really late), but I'm sure I'll get used to that again in a couple of weeks. I didn't get to upload my new photos yet (they're on the computer, but not on the web), so I'm adding a photo of Devi from Christmas as penance. What I'm glad about is that I won't be complaining for awhile, because I was getting tired of the Debbie Downer routine. I'll post when I can, but since the bulk of my studying has to be done over the weekend and the front-end of the week, I'm not sure when I'll be posting again. Have fun, all you people in Internet Land. Here's Devi!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

It's 2009. Boy am I glad 2008 is over. I hope everyone will have a blessed new year full of love, success, and hapiness.

For me, 2009 marks a turning point for how I'm going to handle the way I deal with loss. I had to make my peace with '08, and I found a way: Every year, I say goodbye to all those who passed away. I see the closing of the year as marking when a person is left in the past; they are no longer here to experience things and see the future, so while I can try to imagine what they would think of things, it helps me to accept that they are only in my heart. For my issue with my grandmother's death, I found a (somewhat macabre) connection that makes me feel just a tiny bit better. My grandmother and my daughter are connected by 2008. Grandma managed to make it six days into the new year, and I didn't even know that my first child was [finally] on the way. They were both here at the same time, but didn't know of each other. The important thing (to me) is that there was a time when they were part of my life, and it's the only connection I have. I can't focus anymore on how much it hurts, or how difficult it is to see the aftermath of my family's collapse, but this has given me something that will help me to start moving forward. I will do my best to help them, but I won't sacrifice my husband and daughter's welfare. And Devi loves her family (she really likes people), so I'm building that bridge up so that they know that I'm always going to be there for them.

2008 brought me some good things as well: My daughter, acceptance into graduate school, a fellowship & a scholarship, self-esteem, and a reconnection with old friends. My baby was dedicated, I survived my first quarter of grad school, and I worked on an abstract for my first academic conference as a possible participant [Long-freaking-shot]. I spent so much time in anguish and sorrow in '08 that I almost missed all the good parts. I met awesome friends on my blog (but I keep on not putting up photos; sorry!) and I got to air out all my grievances and share my joy. I even have a follower. I got to see the first black president get elected...I can't think of much else.

Anyway, I was supposed to be drugged up by now (long story, was supposed to be posted in '08 but my computer hated me, so it'll get posted later but have the time it was started and not when finished), but I want to say, again, Happy New Year.

Okay, I'm done with this happy crap. I've got to get back to being me. Where are some videos of people falling down...

This was supposed to be a New Year's Eve post, but my computer and the internet conspired to stymie my efforts. Whatever.

Anyway, instead of spending New Year's Eve enjoying my family, working feverishly on an abstract for a conference that was due Dec. 31, and getting cleaning done for a new bed that will arrive on Saturday, I got waylaid in the ER for an allergic reaction to amoxicillin. I was taking it for a sinus infection that I was diagnosed with two days ago, but I didn't take it until 11 a.m. Wednesday morning. I didn't have any ill effects until noon; I had just changed Devi and decided to look something up on the computer when I noticed that my tongue and my lips were starting to swell and the bottoms of my hands and feet were really itchy. I immediately took her into our room and gave her to my husband, saying "Take her. Take her now!" I made him call our insurance company's nurse to find out what I should do [I knew what I should do, but I wanted it on record that we were told to go by the nurse so that the insurance company couldn't say "We won't cover it because it wasn't an emergency"]. We threw on clothes and dressed Devi and my husband was calling all of his friends that he trusted to see if any of them could watch our daughter while I went to the ER. Despite my worsening symptoms, I remembered that one of his friends said that she would be off work that day and I told him to call her. He did eventually reach her and she agreed to watch Devi. We rushed to the ER downtown and I got seen relatively quickly [I was the second person in line, and I was even able to help a woman zip up a coat on a mentally handicapped man despite my jumpiness] and told them my symptoms. They checked my vitals, decided that I needed to be treated with IV injections (but can someone explain why I needed the saline first? I'm no nurse, and I'd really like to know) and I was given benedryl, the steroid predinisone, and pepsid for my stomach pains. Matt came in after the injections were done, and what I didn't expect was the sudden drowsiness that hit me ~ 1 minute later. The nurse asked me if I could walk from the treatment area to the room I would be in and I said, spacily, "NooOooOooOo". He got a wheelchair and we got to the back room where I was glad that my husband could speak for me and sign my paperwork. I could barely hold the pen; there was no way I could sign anything. I was checked periodically for a few hours and got 45 min. worth of sleep. My symptoms did improve and by the time I was released, there was just a rash on my right arm (not itchy, but ugly), my lower lip and my tongue were still slightly swollen, and I'm supposed to be on pepsid and benedryl for the next three days (at least the stuff is OTC).

Now here is where a little of what I learned last quarter comes into play. I had to read Anthony Giddens' The Consequences of Modernity where I learned about what creates a modernist civilization vs. a pre-modernist civilization. One of those things is the kinship factor. Pre-modernist societies had relationships that were built around kinship, because you knew everyone in your small town and they were your "family" as it were (the blood-related ones and not blood-related). However, in modernist societies, you don't have that built-in kinship, so you have to create relationships with friends and lovers to replace the familial relationship. My consequence of modernity was that we had to scramble to find someone to take care of Devi because we don't have family members close by that we could have left her with, and since he didn't want her exposed to an ER (neither did I) he called everyone he knew and could trust. If it weren't for us going over to a friend's place the day before where I found out they would be off on New Year's Eve, I'm not sure what we would have done.

The one good thing about discovering my allergy this way was that it would've been disastrous if I had found this out when going to a dentist appointment. You see, I have to take an anti-biotic when I go to the dentist because I have a prolapsed heart valve (it's to keep from getting an infection in my blood when they do my teeth, since the prolapse doesn't pose any other dangers to me), but I discovered that the amoxicillin I had been taking for the dentist was in 500 mg form, and I had to take four of those at a time! I had some pretty moderate swelling of my lips and tongue with a 250 mg pill, just imagine if I had taken 8x as much for a dentist appointment. It could've been fatal.

And that abstract I was working on? I was trying to submit an abstract for an academic comic conference and it was due December 31st. However, my computer decided it wanted to party, so I ended up mailing it in around 1 a.m. today (1/1/09). What I didn't realize was that I sent it to the wrong address. He has two addresses for the University of Florida, and I didn't send it to his departmental address, so I had to forward it around 5 p.m. when I realized my error. He just sent me a response saying that my abstract will still be considered for acceptance [Again, long-freaking-shot]. Even if it is rejected, I am going to use this abstract as the basis for a project in a class I'm taking this coming quarter, which starts Monday [I thought I had a couple more days...oh well].

Anyway, I'm fine (so far) and I just have to make a follow-up appointment with my doctor to make sure I'm okay and to get my record updated so that it will be known that I am, indeed, allergic to something. Hope everyone else is having a relaxing New Year's. Later ;-)

NOTE: This was officially finished on 1/1/2009 at 8 p.m., even though it appears as a New Year's Eve post.

About Me

I'm in my mid-30s, married mother of one, and lacking any discernible direction in life (still!). I got a library science degree and decided that grad school was so much fun that I'd do it again...and I'm more than a little crazy. If I remember I have this, it'll be an interesting show. Enjoy the ride!